What Is Credit Karma?

Credit Karma is a revolutionary new service that provides customers with what they call the Credit Report Card. Consumers can use CreditKarma.com to see their credit reports, credit score and more for free. That’s right, Credit Karma is completely free to use.

To use the service you only need to sign up with your date of birth and social security number. This information is never stored so you can use the site worry-free. Credit Karma’s tool will use these pieces of information to pull your credit report for you and give you a complete break down of your credit use and factors that are hurting and helping your score.

Credit Karma has been featured in USA Today, American Banker, and The Wall Street Journal and has no hidden fees, free trials, or tricks. You get your credit report, summaries, score comparisons and more.

Once you enter your information and log on to CreditKarma.com for the first time you’ll be treated to a host of options and ways to analyze your credit report. The Credit Report Card goes over key areas of your report and gives you a grade. Here are the categories you’ll receive a grade on:

Open Credit Card Utilization

Percent of One-Time Payments

Average Age of Open Credit Lines

Total Accounts

Hard Credit Inquiries

Total Debt

Debt to Income Ratio

You can view more information on each section and get feedback on why you received yorur grade, along with graphs comparing your grade with others.

You can also view your Credit Score, shown with a graph that updates when you request a new score, letting you track your credit score over a period of time. This section explains your score with a credit simulator, credit compare feature and a credit snapshot.

The credit simulator is a great feature because it lets you see how different scenarios will affect your credit score. For example, you can find out how 9 months of on-time payments will help you or see what taking on $2,000 more debt will do.

There’s also an area of Credit Karma that gives you special offers. The My Karma Offers section of the website shows you offers that pertain to your specific credit score. You’ll see credit card offers that you qualify for, letting you go right to the application or check out user ratings of the offer.

Lastly, be sure to check out the helpful articles and calculators Credit Karma offers. You can use their home affordability and debt repayment calculators to analyze your debt as well as view current credit and rate trends in the market place.

Credit Karma offers a service all consumers can use: the ability to access and analyze their own credit history for free, allowing them to improve their score and gain a better understanding of their own credit use.

Kevin

Kevin founded CreditShout in 2008 to help people manage their credit and finances. He wants to make it easy for anyone, regardless of their level of financial knowledge to understand credit cards and what may seem like the complex world of personal finance. | Author Google+

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